We are joined by Heritage’s Middle Eastern Affairs expert Jim Phillips. Jim will be taking your questions about what we should be doing in Libya and what we should not be doing. There has been a lot said about the current situation in Libya and Heritage has written extensively about it. Lunch with Heritage feat. Jim Phillips
A recent New York Times article points out that divorce rates—once highest in metropolitan, big city areas—are now creeping upward in Middle America: Forty years ago, divorced people were more concentrated in cities and suburbs. But geographic distinctions have all but vanished, and now, for the first time, rural Americans are just as likely to be divorced as city dwellers. And it’s not just an upswing in divorce rates. Middle America is also experiencing another dramatic family shift: the rapidly increasing rate of children born to single mothers.
A year ago, a board of three unelected bureaucrats reversed 75 years of precedent when it decided airlines and railroads can unionize with the support of just a majority of voting workers rather than a majority of all workers. Today, the House of Representatives takes up a bill that would reverse that decision and restore precedent — but it faces internal opposition and the threat of a presidential veto. The Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill includes a provision, Title IX, that would annul the National Mediation Board’s 2010 Minority Rule …
According to the liberal version of events, the ongoing fight in Wisconsin between Gov. Scott Walker (R) and government unions centered on the unions’ “right” to collective bargain for wages and benefits. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, there simply is no “right” to collective bargaining. And just what are the “benefits” that government unions use their collective bargaining privileges to take from taxpayers? Today, The Washington Post reports on Montgomery County, Maryland’s very similar budget troubles: At a time when public employees unions are fighting for …
Next week, the House Budget Committee will consider the fiscal year 2012 budget resolution in what is expected to be a marathon committee markup. The committee faces a dire budget reality; with entitlement spending that is absorbing essentially all of our federal income, while non-security discretionary spending is dramatically increasing. We now borrow roughly forty cents of every dollar we spend. In this grim budget situation, we must dramatically cut federal spending and reform entitlements. However, I do not believe that all government spending is equal. Instead, I believe that …
“I give out this statistic all the time, and forgive me for repeating it again: America holds about 2 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves.” – President Barack Obama, March 30, 2011 It would be easier to forgive the President’s repetition if it the way he used it made any sense at all. Here is his explanation of why it matters: What that means is, is that even if we drilled every drop of oil out of every single one of the reserves that we possess—offshore and onshore—it still …
After more than a year of delay, the House Financial Services Committee is finally starting work on legislation that will hopefully end Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two housing finance giants that helped to make the housing crisis worse. Both essentially failed in September 2008 and have been in a conservatorship under control of the Federal Housing Finance Agency since then. Many had hoped that Congress would address these two entities at the same time that it overhauled the financial regulatory system in the onerous Dodd–Frank legislation. But that …
All the world mourned the human toll taken by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Thousands of lives were lost; hundreds of thousands more shattered. Of course, natural disasters inflict economic destruction as well, and estimates of the recent disasters’ cost to Japan are now coming in. Catastrophe modeler Risk Management Solutions Inc. (RMS) puts economic losses from the earthquake and tsunami between $200 billion and $300 billion. That estimate, RMS says, “reflects not only property damage but secondary consequences, such as disruption to power supplies, evacuations and decommissioning of several …
In the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, children suffer in a public education system rife with violence and ranked among the worst in the nation. Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives took action to give those students some hope when it voted to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (D.C. OSP), which provides scholarships to low-income children, allowing them to attend their school of choice. It was one of the most consequential education votes that Congress will make this year. The program empowers parents, and it rejects the notion that …
Libya’s seat at the United Nations is currently vacant. Weeks ago, Muammar Qadhafi fired his U.N. ambassador Mohammed Shalgham after the ambassador denounced the Libyan strongman as a tyrant. In his stead, Qadhafi named another veteran and loyal diplomat, Ali Treki. The U.S. has apparently denied Treki a visa to enter the U.S. Qadhafi’s dear friend and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has stepped in, saying he is sending Nicaragua’s former foreign minister and all-purpose anti-American Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann to U.N. headquarters to act on Qadhafi’s behalf. D’Escoto is no impartial …
